The Alberta government is assembling thousands of anti-overdose kits, while ordering officials to slash detox waiting lists as a fentanyl crisis rocks southern Alberta.

The moves come as new data suggest the number of fentanyl-related deaths this year will soon outpace last year’s total. Alberta Health confirmed Wednesday that fentanyl was a cause or contributing factor in 110 deaths between Jan. 1 and mid-May, compared with the 120 deaths recorded for all of 2014.

“I’ve asked my ministry to look into other timely actions that we can take to bring about change immediately,” Health Minister Sarah Hoffman told the Herald. “We want to make sure if there’s anything we can do in short-term measures, that we’re not leaving any stone unturned.”

Alberta Health confirmed it has a one-year project grant to fund an estimated 3,250 naloxone kits across the province, which are now being assembled. “Rollout is expected over the next one to two months,” spokesman Tim Kulak said.

A recent Herald investigation found that Calgary’s two public detoxification facilities are grappling with overcrowding and regularly turning away patients.

Visitors to the province’s Renfrew Recovery Centre report that at times half of those seeking help are asked to return later, with no new beds added since the centre’s 1975 opening. Staff at the non-profit Alpha House, the city’s only other public detox facility, reported similar problems.

Doctors at the University of Alberta have reported northern Alberta patients seeking detox treatment in neighbouring provinces.

“Often times it means the difference between life and death, and it’s heartbreaking for the employees of those facilities because they know exactly that,” said Stacey Petersen, executive director of the Fresh Start Recovery Centre, which works with people after they’ve completed a detox program.

Post-treatment rehabilitation programs such as Fresh Start are also overcrowded, with Petersen’s group set to almost double its 24 beds this summer to deal with a growing wait list.

Hoffman says the government’s well aware of the shortage in both detoxification and rehabilitation beds.

Find out how many publicly funded detox beds are in your community:

“We need to make sure that the people that are being admitted, that it’s safe before they can be discharged, which I understand is a little bit of what the backlog is: that there’s so much demand,” said Hoffman. She said the bed shortage will be studied as part of the mental health task force her government announced Monday.

Liberal Leader David Swann, a former medical officer tapped to co-chair the study, said he anticipates recommendations will be published around the end of the year, and that addiction issues need to be treated alongside mental health issues, instead of through separate systems.

Meanwhile, the government is rolling out naloxone kits, which can prevent deaths in the early phases of an overdose. The Blood Tribe reserve rolled out kits independently in March after at least 16 deaths. The tribe declared a victory at a Monday conference, saying the kits have reversed a nine-month rise in fentanyl overdoses.

The Kanai Blood reserve in southern Alberta distributed take home naloxone kits in the community to help save lives in overdose situations.Gavin Young /
Calgary Herald

“We’re definitely working with community agencies to get those out into the hands of family members and other people who are engaging with people who are maybe at risk of facing an overdose,” said Hoffman, who stressed that kits alone will not fix the problem.

“When we think about the pain that addicts — but also that family members are experiencing, wondering about the future of their loved ones — it is definitely something that nobody takes lightly.”

The Canadian Mental Health Association’s advocacy and policy head for the Calgary area said the province needs to invest more in solving addictions, which only account for a fifth of mental health funding.

“Accessibility to all services is definitely an issue for a lot of Albertans and Calgarians. Clearly there isn’t a huge amount of detox capacity,” said Callum Ross.

Ross hailed the government for identifying the role of housing, poverty and aboriginal issues in mental health during Monday’s throne speech.

But he said the province ought to study a single point-of-entry model, like Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. People at any phase of a mental health issue can go to the two large downtown sites and be referred to the correct service, usually within the same building.

In Alberta, the Access Mental Health hotline is meant to refer people to the appropriate service, but Ross says the service is swamped by calls, while his organization, which does research and advocacy, has had 1,700 calls for help last year about navigating mental health services.

Ross notes the province completed a “Gap Map” survey last year, tallying mental health and addiction spending alongside the experience of 6,000 patients. The survey found that half of patients did not have their needs met, while 0.1 per cent of that year’s health spending went to programs to prevent mental illness.

Petersen, despite seeing more need than ever in his 11 years running Fresh Start, is optimistic because Albertans are taking addiction seriously.

“I think we’re hitting a critical mass of awareness around mental health in the community, and I applaud the community in general for talking about the issues, for having the conversation.”

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